The Whole Music Experience

Polyphony/Britten Sinfonia/Stephen Layton  George Frideric Handel Messiah Hyperion Records I am not a religious person, but when I listen to Handel’s Messiah , I feel a certain holiness enter the room—the space becomes sacred.  Oddly, a Handel expert told me last year that the baroque composer was not particularly religious.  True he had composed other oratorios with Biblical themes before composing the music for Messiah , but he did recycle material from his secular operas to appear as arias in Messiah .  However, this exalted music with its fiery arias and stunning orchestral interludes, must have given old Handel some pause for religious thought.  The libretto alone tells a powerful story of prophecy, suffering and transcendence, as well as, faith in Divine Providence. Handel reworked the oratorio several times, adding arias for soloist and most notably for the castrato Gaetano Guadagni, in 1750.  The original performance of Messiah to...

Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov Beethoven Complete Sonatas for Piano and Violin Harmonia Mundi If someone wanted to become intimate with the Romantic musician-composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), spending time with the composer’s scores would certainly open a door. Many classically-trained musicians and scholars delved into the German composer’s scores, though barely decipherable given the composer’s messy handwriting and equally messy palette of raw emotions Beethoven brought to his sonatas and other work. And the musicians would also discover when researching the composer that he started out as a violinist and even mastered the instrument, though piano turned out to be his forte (pun intended). Hungarian pianist and Beethoven interpreter Andràs Schiff recorded the entire cycle of the German composer’s piano sonatas for ECM Records, with the last recording of the series released in 2009. Now, German violinist Isabelle Faust and Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov...

Joana Amendoeira À Flor Da Pele World Village A new fadista to my ears, Joana Amendoeira sings original fados in a classic style that hails back to the era before Amàlia Rodrigues. Her fifth CD, À Flor da Pele offers less gusto than her contemporary Mariza’s work, but as much sensuality and beauty as heard on Mariza’s and Cristina Branco’s recordings. Joana’s vocals caress every note and she embodies the poetry she sings with broad strokes. Her band includes Pedro Amendoeira on Portuguese guitar, Pedro Pinhal on classical guitar and Paulo Paz on double bass and the music the quartet performs possesses a sepia tone veneer and a whiff of nostalgia. Although I don’t understand Portuguese, I feel the longing Joana sings about in the song, Apelo . The following song, Amor O Teu Nome conjures the happiness of lovers with its lilting Portuguese guitar and Joana’s spritely vocal interpretation. And each song, opalescent and strung together like pearls, reveals the di...

Totò La Momposina La Bodega Astar Colombian vocalist Totò La Momposina came to my attention in 2004, when her delicious cumbia, Yo Me Llamo Cumbia appeared on the Putumayo compilation Women of Latin America , alongside Chilean Mariana Montalvo, Brazilian Monica Salmaso, Colombian Marta Gòmez and others. She headlined in the Putumayo Presents Women in Latin America tour along with Brazilian Belo Velloso and Mariana Montalvo (mentioned earlier), and if she did not rouse audience members physically, she most certainly roused them emotionally. So years later, I am pleased to receive her recording, La Bodega . Released on an independent label, Totò offers us songs that you cannot sit still while listening to them. In fact, I flew out of my chair and found myself dancing throughout my small apartment. I knew that in order to write this review, I would need to do so in silence because those Afro-Colombian cross-rhythms, thumping beats, punchy brass and Totò’s alto vocals...

Tuning in the key of 440 Thad Carhart The Piano Shop on the Left Bank Discovering at Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier Random House, 2001 As a child, I gravitated towards any piano that I encountered, at people’s houses, at the church and in stores. I never learned how to play piano and my family did not own one, but the instrument, in all of its wooden glory, with white and black keys beckoning for my fingers to caress them, called to me.  And I adored it. Now, as an adult, I listen to many solo piano recordings, from Bach and Beethoven to Ravel. Some of the pianists in my collect include, Glenn Gould, Angela Hewitt, Pèter Nagy, Andràs Schiff, Murray Perahia and many others. These virtuosos have no awareness that I exist in some tucked away small city, enchanted by the music they recorded. And the author Thad Carhart who wrote The Piano Shop on the Left Bank , has no awareness of me luxuriating in his every word as he waxed on about every aspect of the piano...